The usual formula for a Department S adventure is the perpetration of a seemingly impossible crime which our heroes are called on to solve, the weirder the situation (the inhabitants of an entire village disappear, an airliner arrives a week late) the better.
This episode seems to want to give more emotional depth to the characters, when all we want is outlandish entertainment to send us on our way with a smile. Here, Department S is tasked with finding an elusive master criminal based in Beirut whose identity is completely unknown, apart from a name - Rafic.
The episode starts with the murder of an Interpol agent who was a particular friend of Stewart Sullivan, so we get a "you're too emotionally involved Sullivan, keep off the case" scene with Sir Curtis Seretse. Jason King is given the job of going to Beirut, and soon falls for the crook's girlfriend because she reminds him of his dead wife(!). (Yes, after seventeen episodes of flippant skirt-chasing we find Jason was married to a film actress who was killed in an air crash!) She also falls for him and continually tries to get Jason out of Beirut and away from danger.
Meanwhile some guys are messing around in a laboratory, apparently making up a consignment of drugs for Mr Big.
After a lot of flabby, talky, non-action, the whole thing culminates is a scene where the girl shoots Mr Big when he is about to shoot Jason, is prostrated by grief and guilt, and Jason is left girlfriend-less once more.
The main problems here are an over-ambitious script which really doesn't deliver the goods, and - being brutally frank - poor handling by the actors who struggle to do more than is usually asked of them. It doesn't help that Lee Montague and Magda Konopka are looped to cover their East London and Polish accents. The drugs plot never makes sense and contributes little to the story.
This is one episode of Department S that doesn't need to be seen twice.
This episode seems to want to give more emotional depth to the characters, when all we want is outlandish entertainment to send us on our way with a smile. Here, Department S is tasked with finding an elusive master criminal based in Beirut whose identity is completely unknown, apart from a name - Rafic.
The episode starts with the murder of an Interpol agent who was a particular friend of Stewart Sullivan, so we get a "you're too emotionally involved Sullivan, keep off the case" scene with Sir Curtis Seretse. Jason King is given the job of going to Beirut, and soon falls for the crook's girlfriend because she reminds him of his dead wife(!). (Yes, after seventeen episodes of flippant skirt-chasing we find Jason was married to a film actress who was killed in an air crash!) She also falls for him and continually tries to get Jason out of Beirut and away from danger.
Meanwhile some guys are messing around in a laboratory, apparently making up a consignment of drugs for Mr Big.
After a lot of flabby, talky, non-action, the whole thing culminates is a scene where the girl shoots Mr Big when he is about to shoot Jason, is prostrated by grief and guilt, and Jason is left girlfriend-less once more.
The main problems here are an over-ambitious script which really doesn't deliver the goods, and - being brutally frank - poor handling by the actors who struggle to do more than is usually asked of them. It doesn't help that Lee Montague and Magda Konopka are looped to cover their East London and Polish accents. The drugs plot never makes sense and contributes little to the story.
This is one episode of Department S that doesn't need to be seen twice.